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t m c » p u l s e | m a r c h 2 0 1 5 27 S pend ten minutes with Maegan Morrow and you will see how much she truly loves helping people. It's not just in the way her face lights up when she talks about the work she has done over the past 15 years. It's also evident when patients stop her in the hallway for a hug, or offer updates on their at-home therapy sessions. Morrow is part of TIRR Memorial Hermann's team of music therapists—all trained in utilizing neurologic music therapy techniques to help stimulate speech, increase mobility, and generally improve quality of life for patients struggling to overcome stroke or trau- matic brain injury. It's a lesser-known form of therapy, but growing in popularity thanks to the dedication of those in the field, and high-profile stories like that of Gabrielle (Gabby) Giffords, a former Arizona congresswoman who suffered severe trauma to the left side of her brain after she was shot at a local community event in 2011. Giffords was transferred to Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, then TIRR Memorial Hermann, in the weeks following the shooting, and worked regularly with a team of speech, occupational, physical and music therapists, including Morrow and her colleague Amy Marroquin. While Giffords still struggles with aphasia—trouble recalling and stringing together words—she is quick to sing along with some of her favorite songs from the Broadway musical, "Annie." Monica Verduzco- Gutierrez, M.D., Medical Co-Director of the Outpatient Medical Clinic at TIRR Memorial Hermann, and Assistant Professor at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) Medical School, explained how the brain processes language and music. "Our brains are all very similar, and the language centers for almost everyone are going to be on the left side of our brain, in certain areas," she said. "There is an area that makes you come out with the word, there is an area that helps you comprehend the word…and for most people, those are on the left side of the brain. "Music is not just one side of the brain or the other. Music is everywhere in the brain, because music can be so complicated and you have to be able to understand pitch, intonation, rhythm and the words that are coming through the music. So both sides of the brain process that. And we definitely think that music therapy helps for patients who have aphasia. Particularly for patients who have a musical back- ground, because their brains are more developed towards music. So let's say someone has aphasia or is a little bit paralyzed in an arm, but they previously played the guitar and sang. They have really complex neurons laid down in their brain, and I think they would be more likely to get the movement and words back because of how complex their brain is from being a musician before and their ability to pull language from different areas of the brain through music." I use a technique called music/speech stimulation. And it basically looks like I'm just singing with them, but I am actually stimulating speech from their brain. So I am accessing a different part of their brain to retrieve words. I'm retrieving lyrics instead of proper semantic speech. — MAEGAN MORROW Music Therapist at TIRR Memorial Hermann A Key to Recovery A team of passionate and energetic music therapists are out to make a difference through patient care and rehabilitation B y A m a n d a D . S t e i n